


Blood Worship

by twofoldAxiom



Series: cultural worldbuilding-heavy Alternia AU [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Alien Flora & Fauna, Alien Mythology/Religion, Alternate Universe - No Game, Background Character Death, Background Relationships, Background Sollux Captor, Background Vriska Serket, Blood and Violence, Bulges and Nooks (Homestuck), Casteism | Hemophobia (Homestuck), Fictional Religion & Theology, Multi, NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo 2020, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Plague Doctor Aesthetic, Rating May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:15:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27352570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twofoldAxiom/pseuds/twofoldAxiom
Summary: Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you've been left to die in the street on this unforgiving morning. Though you rage against your untimely, undignified death, you don't have the strength to fight it.Luckily for you, the gods have other plans.
Series: cultural worldbuilding-heavy Alternia AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1997605
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy NaNo 2020! I'm late as hell already, but I'm sure this will go alright. I saw the opportunity to spring off of "gods and sinners" and I guess that's where we're going this year.
> 
> Jade's intermission to "Crowned, Collared, Chained" is being saved for when I have the will and confidence to write a character I'm more unfamiliar with. For now, have more Karkat.
> 
> EDIT: Will be following my usual "it'll happen when it happens" posting schedule from now on because I haven't found it in me to figure out how to do it this month apparently. I thought I did, but I was wrong. Ah well.

The saddest thing, you think, is that you're going to die for something really fucking stupid. You just _had_ to mouth off to the already angry highblood wielding a bloodstained bludgeoning weapon. What were you thinking exactly? Like you might chastise her into not murdering the shit out of you?

Facedown in the dirt as it thuds against your back and sides and over your head, it's all you can do to keep your arms over your nugbone and try to weather the damage she's inflicting on you. You're not doing great; you're a half-starved mutant for fuck's sake. Your vision is going blurry at the edges and you're sure you might actually die here, visions of your meager life flashing through your mind as you whimper into the dust and try to remember how to pray.

She spits on you, cold and slimy. It runs between your grabprongs and sticks in your hair.

"Someone get rid of this trash. It's too much effort to deal with it myself when the sun's coming up." She grumbles to nobody in particular, or maybe to you. You don't think life in this marketplace would slow just because someone took a break to beat the shit out of a mutant. Mostly you're too busy sniffling and gasping through your teeth, every breath taking more effort than the last.

She kicks you once more in the side for good measure, hard enough to toss you a couple of feet, and she laughs in that nasal, honking way so popular with highbloods before getting back to whatever business it was she was here for in the first place. You don't know. You're barely fucking conscious.

You blink away your tears, your breath stinging in your chest.

It hurts to keep your lids open, but it hurts more to close them, makes you all too aware of your bruised face and split lip, the sun starting to rise over the buildings, the cold gutter water under the back of your head.  A bell tolls in the distance, calling the faithful to prayer as the night ends. A dozen other bells toll, different chimes and pitches for different gods. Maybe that highblood was going to pray and this was her good deed for the night.

Focus. You blink again, squinting, vaguely aware of people and animals stepping over and around you. You hear a vendor complain about the rates of public murder driving away his customers. You hear someone haggling over the price of squid, and the bells on a flock of bleatbeasts as they pass. Your breath steams in the morning air, and a fly buzzes around your lips. You try to turn over and pain shoots up the entire left side of your body, bright and blinding.

You nearly black out just from that. When you can see again, you're still where you were lying, barely even moving enough to get your hair out of the muddy water.

Literally staring up at the sky in a gutter. Somehow you knew you'd probably die like this, but the reality doesn't make it any easier. You blink again, slower this time, spots dancing in your vision.

Someone stops beside you. You want to tell them to go away and leave you to die with what little dignity you might have left, want to sound angry about being disturbed from your own death, but you're too weak right now, terrified they want to toy with you some more. You try to growl as they hold your face in their hands but all that comes out is a broken whimper.

They click their tongue. "Oh dear." They croon, examining you closer. "We'll have to do something about that lip."

Their face is in shadow, distorted and strange from the way they loom over you and the way the scant sunlight slants across their cheekblades. Reddish-brown paint dots the creases under their ganderbulbs. You'd think it was pretty if it wasn't so much like your own blood.

They sit beside you. Great. You won't even get to die in a gutter without the Universe sending someone to annoy you through it.

You try to blink, but your eyelids are too heavy now, your aching body failing you. Typical.

At least it stops hurting when you pass the fuck out.

~!~

It hurts a lot more when you wake up, so you kind of regret passing out in the first place. You'd assumed you weren't going to wake up again, and when has assuming anything ever gone well for you?

You groan. Your hands clench, and your claws catch on something like a mat or a sheet. At least you're dry, that's nice, and you're somewhere dark judging by the fact that your skin doesn't feel burnt. You still feel like shit, though.

"Oh, shit, he's awake."

You'd laugh, but it still hurts to move anything. If they plan on taking your filtration nuggets, too bad, your mutant organs are probably useless except as food.

It's amusing until you remember they might be planning something else, and you don't know what that is.

A light is beamed down at your face, voices muttering around you.

"I'd say it's Melody's mercy that it wasn't his time, but I don't think I'm allowed to say that." Says someone to your left. A pause. "Am I allowed to say that?"

An older, more tired voice answers. "I'm letting that go because you've only just joined the temple. Hand me that pitcher."

Fluid is poured into a smaller container, and you hear a cloth being wrung into it before pain explodes in your side, so sudden that you can't help but scream. " _Fuck!_ "

"That's good! That's good, you let it out, we'll get you fixed up; the body and soul are purified in exertion." Gods high and low, you wish the one pressing the cloth to your wounds would shut up and also stop trying to rub whatever unholy concoction that is into you. You writhe in agony, trying to wriggle away and only managing to make new pains burst through your consciousness. How badly were you beaten? Holy fucking shit.

You're being held down by the squeamish one, the one who was questioning earlier. Your vision clears from the sharpness off the pain, and your head throbs.

You're indoors, in a stone block that smells of alcohol and honey. The cloth being pressed to your side is pulled away and you wheeze. "Where the fuck am I? Who- ugh-" Your throat's too dry, you cough. "Who are you? What do you want?"

They look at each other. Neither is the painted face you saw earlier this morning- is it still morning? The block is lit by glowgrubs. They wear masks with dark glass over the look-sockets, shiny and ominously sterile. You didn't think medicullers still wore masks like that but then, you're not sure if these two are medicullers.

" It looks like the shock of being beaten senseless is wearing off. Can you drink this?" Right one- red mask- takes the cup and holds it to your face. "It should help with the pain."

It's booze. You're not a complete idiot. You're still being held down, so you turn your head towards the left one, brown mask. "How about _you_ explain- fuck- _shit-!_ " You hiss, as they pin you in the wrong place entirely and red mask continues wiping you down. You're getting steadily more aware that you're also naked, cool air tickling the skin where red mask's cloth scrubs you. "Alright, alright, I'll drink the stupid whatever-it-is, just _stop that!_ "

"Not very appreciative of having been brought back from the brink of death, are you?" Tuts brown mask. "You're not the only poor soul we have to attend to this morning. Though you do seem to be the one with the most..." They turn one hand in the air, thinking it over. "Fighting spirit, I guess. You're still in rough shape."

Red mask lightly pulls brown mask's hands away, and helps you sit up. It aches the whole way, and you immediately want to lie back down; you're probably concussed, though, so you resist as red mask places a cup of that awful-smelling booze in your hands. You manage to look down at yourself and wince.

You're so black and blue all over that it's shocking to think your skin had once been grey, in the patches you see between bandages and bruises. You've never thought of yourself as healthy-looking, but right now you're about a step up from a corpse. You distract yourself from the sight of your injuries, throbbing now that you're aware of them, and drink.

It's bittersweet, sour, and faintly pickled-tasting. Your throat dries up further. "Ugh!" You gag.

But it does help with the pain. It doesn't fill your belly with the sickly warmth of alcohol, but you feel a little better.

"Medicine." Says red mask, answering your unsaid question. They clap their hands together. "An old recipe handed to me by my ancestor before she died, brewed from mind honey and essence of sunvine bile."

You look down at the empty cup. It definitely tasted like it would be made from some kind of gastric extract.

"My name is Lintah, and the acolyte to your left is Hirudo. Presently, you're in the infirmary here in the temple of Blood."

You’d say they're both a bit overdressed for typical worshipers of Pulse and Haze, but you look around and see other figures in dark masks and light brown robes, some unmistakably stained with blood and assorted other bodily fluids. Most of them are attending other patients; some are mixing medicine or just talking. Occasionally, you'll see someone come in actually dressed like a typical acolyte, and then they go behind a changing screen and come out wearing the same old-timey hazmat suits.

You raise an arm and find that it doesn't hurt too much to do that, even if it still hurts, so Lintah's shitty bile tincture seems to be working, or at least hasn't poisoned you to the point of disfigurement. You'll be charitable and say it's working.

"You'll want to rest for a while, but do try to stay awake." Lintah says. "And don't do anything that might raise your blood pressure or otherwise give you a pan-ache. We still need to talk about where you'll go to recover. It looks like the infirmary is nearly to capacity."

"What do you mean 'where I'll go'? I'll go back to my hive."  You look at them. They squirm, cringing in their shapeless robes, and you can feel a pan-ache coming already. "It’ll free up some space here in the infirmary if I go. Unless you mean you're going to keep me here and make my lusus worry. Trust me, he's a crawgaunt; he will _worry_."

"Bit late for that." Hirudo laughs nervously. You hear a familiar screeching from the direction of the doorway, and acolytes leap out of the way as Crabdad bursts into the infirmary. 

You can only imagine how ominous everything looks to him right this second: You, naked and bloody, surrounded by creepy-looking cultists. You wince as he screeches again, his claws coming up to his face in dismay before he charges towards your "captors".

"Oh for crying out- hey, I'm fine! I'm fine, damnit!" He scoops you up in his claws despite you and the mediculler acolytes trying to get him to calm down, the movement dizzyingly fast. He holds you against the warm carapace of his chest with one arm, brandishing a snapping claw at the medicullers as they back away from him.

"I'm _fine_ , you big fucking lump!" You are _not_ fine, and he makes you well aware with screeches and chitters that he _knows_ you're not fine. He shrieks at an acolyte standing too close and she scurries away like a squeakbeast, if squeakbeasts could whimper like that. You try and smack him on the chestplate in something akin to a soothing pap, the impact making your frond-bones ache. "It's not as bad as it looks! These weirdos are the ones who got me off the street in the first place!"

Somehow that admission only makes Crabdad panic more.

He curls up over you, still snapping at anyone who comes too close. His thorax rattles soothingly at you though, as he checks over your injuries. You're mostly just annoyed that you don't have pants on, so everyone watching is presumably still getting a bulbful of your business, including some of the patients who've woken up because of the racket.

The doors open again, and a short, round troll in gauzy brown-red robes knocks on the doorframe. Crabdad looks up at her as the acolytes part in a straight path to you, all of them murmuring and bowing as she passes. 

She breezes right in, walkstubs hurrying across the floor; the movement barely stirs her curly hair out of place as she stops in front of you, and she seems completely nonplussed by the warning screech rising in pitch and volume from Crabdad's maw.

You recognize her. It's been sweeps, but you recognize her. Her horns are bigger, her face plumper, but besides filling out and a new outfit, that's Aradia Megido as you mostly remember her. Shit, you wonder what Sollux would say. Temple life did her some good.

"Aradia?"  You blink, but she doesn't disappear like ghosts generally do. Granted, ghosts don't generally look different from when they died, and she's the picture of good health. "The fuck are you doing _here_?"

Crabdad looks to you, and then her, and she does a little wave with her grabprongs. Thankfully, she doesn't grin at either of you, though the placid, chipper smile is similarly unsettling on her. Probably just because it's her. Hopefully just because it's her.

"I could ask you the same thing! I think I might have a general idea if you're in the infirmary, though. _But_..." She looks apologetic. "We'll need to take care of you a little while longer. It looks like you've only got some _cracked_ bones, though, and with Lintah's help, you'll be back on your feet pretty quick; she's good at that. Can you tell your lusus?"

He shrieks again and curls up tighter around you. You're pretty sure Crabdad understood her just fine. "I don't think he's fine with the idea of leaving me here, and frankly I'm not keen on the idea either. This place is creepy as fuck; what's with the masks?"

"Proper sanitation protocols; temples that provide care for the injured and diseased have to follow them. We can't afford the newer models, but these work just fine." Hirudo pipes in. Lovely. You'd forgotten he was here and also that you might be surrounded by plague.

He hides behind Aradia when Crabdad shoots him a glare, which makes you chuckle and then wheeze in pain. Your vision swims.

"Okay, maybe I don't have that much of a choice.  Tasting like the inside of an ass aside, maybe I could use more of Lintah's medicine after all." Lintah huffs quietly. You ignore her as a cool breeze sends prickles across your bare skin, and you remember everyone here is still, you know, more dressed than you; even Aradia in her Blood temple robes. " Can I get some pants at least?"

"Yours are being washed right now, but we can lend you some clothes." Aradia turns to Hirudo. "Go get him one of the acolyte's uniforms, alright?"

He perks up, his mask flopping slightly as he straightens. "At once, holy one!" He says, and leaves to do as she says. She turns to the rest of the acolyte-medicullers as they ply her with questions and instructs them back to their work, before finally returning to you.

"You probably have questions." She says. 

"No shit." You roll your eyes. "But I'll eat first, ask later. Sunvine bile is at least good for the appetite; I'd kill for grubloaf right about now."

"That I can help with. Just wait here." You can tell Crabdad wants to escape with you as fast as possible, but you put your palm on his snout with a rub and he calms slightly, at least enough to cradle you instead of crushing you against him as Aradia turns to leave. Poor guy is more freaked out about your near-death than you are.

"So." Lintah starts. She pokes you as your eyelids start getting heavy again, making Crabdad and you hiss at the same time. "Easy, easy. I just wanted to ask. What exactly did you say to get the shit beat out of you like that?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit late because I'm not at home right now, so the past couple days have been pretty distracting. Still working on this fic, but I'll probably not be able to finish it this November. Sorry!

Hirudo comes back first with a bundle of pale grey robes. They don't really feel like much, but they're easy to slip on and hang lightly off your skin, so they don't aggravate your injuries like your regular clothes would. When you pass by the glowgrubs, the material is translucent enough that you're nearly naked, and somehow it makes you feel more exposed than it would had you _actually_ been walking around in the nude.

It takes some convincing to get Crabdad let you walk in the first place, but you are _not_ going to be carried around like a grub in front of all these strangers. You still limp and lean against him though, letting him steady you with a claw on your shoulder like you're a wriggler getting used to having only two legs.

The temple proper has plenty of shaded alcoves and awnings, thankfully, because past the windows and pillars you can see it's daylight; midday even, which means you've probably been out for at least the whole morning. Lintah, after changing into some tan acolyte robes, walked beside Aradia ahead of you for a little while, but head back to the infirmary as the bell tolled midday.

The temple grounds are mostly empty. Most trolls would be asleep by now, the chime of the temple bell too distant to wake them. The only movement you see is the wind stirring the trees, shadows dappled pink by the leaves, and the reflection of water in several cleansing pools across the grounds before the temple entrance.

It'd be peaceful if it wasn't so eerie. Carved reliefs of Pulse and Haze look down at you from every corner, streaks of dark, multicolored blood smeared under their lips and eyes. You notice that most of it is lowblood hues.

You catch up to Aradia and break the silence. "How'd you get to be a priestess of Blood, anyway?"

"I thought you were waiting to ask questions _after_ you ate?" She smiles, dimples in the corners of her lips, and turns a corner with you. Faint chatter and the smells of hot oil just barely reach you through a door up ahead. "It's a long story. I can tell you while you eat if you want."

Your gut complains as if on cue, loud enough that Aradia _definitely_ heard it. Crabdad's snout nuzzles into the side of your head until you nudge him off. 

"Yeah, alright." You don't even care what you'll be eating as long as it doesn't taste like Lintah's medicine. 

Aradia pushes open the door and you enter a nutrition hall, large and mostly-empty besides tables and benches. A few acolytes and priests look up, but only the acolytes greet Aradia; the priests go back to discussing things among themselves, though one nods to you. Instead of a cookerifier or a fabricator, there's an open nutrition-prep block full of crates, raw ingredients, steaming pots, and massive clay jars. Aradia opens up one of the jars as you try and look over her shoulder into it, taking a long-stemmed ladle and pouring something dark and meaty into a bowl.

"Definitely not grubloaf." You say, as she turns around and hands you the bowl with a spoon. 

"Nope! But it's good, I promise." She shrugs. "I like it better than grubloaf from a can, anyway."

You sniff, but it doesn't smell familiar. Meaty, savory- it smells _good_ , but you can't really tell the lumps in the stew apart, at least not by sight. You slurp the thick fluid from the lip of the bowl, ignoring the spoon for the moment.

Aradia chuckles, and leads you to a nearby table as she busies herself getting food for Crabdad. It's hot enough to burn, but you're _really_ fucking hungry; you take another gulp and this time a chunk of orange dirt-rocket plops into your mouth with the sauce. You hear Crabdad munching on a whole melon, skin and all, and focus back on Aradia as she sits across from you.

"You wanted to know about how I joined the temple, right?" 

You nod, shoveling more food into your mouth. It's not what you're used to, but you _could_ get used to it. You gesture with the spoon as you gulp. "I didn't take you for the religious type. Or the sex-cult type, I guess; I thought you might have more of an ancient death cult vibe if anything, you know?"

She stirs her bowl- it's not the same food you're eating, some kind of spicy-sweet smelling grainmeal instead- and brings the spoon to her mouth, sucking the pale, sticky porridge off the metal. You try really, really hard not to stare, you do, but the way she does it seems... exhibitionist, somehow.

She catches you staring and smirks. "You sure about that?"

Heat rises in your face. You can practically hear Hirudo telling you about your blood pressure. "Don't fuck with me; I've had a bad night."

She laughs, leaning back in her seat. "Okay, okay, you're right. But I was into that death cult stuff when we were... six? I think we were six. Then Vriska tried to kill me and Sollux brought me here."

Her expression turns wistful as she turns back to stirring her grainmeal. It's like she's forgotten you're there, until she speaks up again. "It's pretty different when you think you're going to die. And, well, okay, you're a mutant who just got beat up in the street so I'm not about to contest you on who might suffer more, but that just means we're both _worthless lowbloods_ to everyone who isn't a lowblood. Like just, in general? A proper mediculler would've taken one look at me and snapped my neck, and then Sollux's neck for the audacity of bothering them."

It certainly sounds like the sort of thing that would happen these nights. You chew a piece of meat, breaking it apart in your molars as she pauses for breath, and finish the thought for her. "Sollux brought you to the temple of Blood because the weirdos in the old-timey masks would've at least tried."

You don't like talking about Sollux. About any of your old friends, but especially Sollux. It still hurts; you still grieve. 

Aradia nods. "We'd talked about it before. It's the only place we could think of where anyone might give enough of a fuck."

You guess that's why they took you in, and why a priest in the market went and brought you here in the first place. That's why you're alive right now. You feel sore all over, but you're alive; but then, you were beaten, not immolated. "Would I be an asshole for asking how you managed to survive on their dubious care? Don't get me wrong, but Sollux burned your hive down with you in it. I'm not even sure if you were in it when you were burned."

She shrugs. "I was unconscious for most of it. I don't really know." She eats a bit more, while you scrape sauce off the bottom off your bowl, resisting the urge to lick it. 

Crabdad wanders over with another melon, dropping heavily into the seat next to you and crunching loudly, splattering you with sweet-smelling juice. 

"Oh, fucking-" You growl, thwapping him; not even hard enough for him to feel it, or for him to pause his melon-massacre. "Have some goddamn manners, did you even ask for that!?"

Crabdad ignores you and buries his face in that poor melon, hollowing it out before snapping up the rind. Aradia slurps up her own food, eyes twinkling. " _Anyway,_ I guess I was just so happy to have a place I could go that gave me something to believe in, you know? After the whole thing with losing my hive and most of my skin. It took a while to get around to joining into the order, but I think it's working out for me."

You blink at her. She looks great, sure, but it all that Blood stuff still sounds so fake and hokey to you. You even open your ignorant windhole to say as much. 

But your wounds twinge as you breathe in. Your life doesn't mean _much,_ but you owe it to this temple. You reconsider at the last second and rephrase yourself. "You really believe the whole cleansing-of-the-soul-through-Blood thing? All the metaphysical stuff about gods and Truth and whatever it is they talk about when pitching this to non-believers?"

"Well, that's not all of it, but I guess that's a start." Her expression doesn't change, but you'd have to be denser than Crabdad to miss the change in the atmosphere. She looks off into a distance you can't see again, probably reliving the day she nearly died. "I lost my hive, and pretty much all my stuff and any reason to stay in the burnt-out husk of that lawnring, and most of my ability to move for a couple seasons. It was the most boring time of my life! I imagine that's really what it might like to be dead, as in dead for real and not a ghost."

"So I lived here in the temple and got to know the acolytes and priests, got around to learning about the metaphysics and the charity and virtues, and before I knew it I was getting holy piercings and going on purification duties. Did you know we don't have to contribute to drone season? We get official concupiscent dispensation as a whole institution, probably because of all the... oh."

You must've made a face. Crabdad also made a face, which is pretty impressive considering his face is mostly hard carapace and a couple mandibles. Aradia has the decency to look apologetic, if only slightly.

"I guess it's really been a while. Not something to say in front of your lusus, huh?"

"I don't want to be in the same _building_ as my lusus if we're gonna talk about that." Crabdad skrees in protest that he should know what his wriggler is getting up to and you skree right back that you're not a wriggler anymore and haven't been a wriggler for sweeps. He chitters plaintively about you always being his special little wriggler and you want to bury yourself in the dirt in shame.

"I was wrong; Aradia, I'm begging you, please take that chair and beat me the rest of the way to death." Even after all this time, Crabdad looks scandalized at the joke, and curls up around you with a warning hiss at Aradia. It takes a little while to calm him down again, and by then, the midday sun is blazing and you, Crabdad, and Aradia are the only ones left in the nutrition hall.

Lintah's medicine must be wearing off, or maybe you were just beaten that hard. You're full and warm, yawning every so often. Crabdad has to steady you in your seat.

"'m fine." You lie, as if either of them can't see just how not-fine you are. Crabdad looks exasperated, and then turns a pleading chitter to Aradia. You miss what he says, which probably points to exactly how badly you're doing, because despite the late hour, Aradia doesn't look tired at all.

You're stirred awake again when Aradia appears by your side, steadying you with a firm, easy grip on your shoulder. "It might be a good idea to stay at least through the day, if you don't mind. At this hour, I don't think it's safe to send anyone out."

"I hadn't thought of that." You stifle another yawn. "But I did think about where you're going to have to put me. Not in the infirmary again, I hope."

"Beggars can't be choosers." She shrugs and you groan. "It'll be the safest place for you, since Lintah and Hirudo can get more of their medicine if you need it. We're still not sure how badly you got whacked around the thinkpan, after all, so we'll need to keep close and watch."

It sounds uncomfortably like "I'm going to watch you while you sleep." At least she's the same Aradia you've always known, sex cultist or not.

Crabdad scoops you up again, even as you hiss at him to let you walk. Your protest is answered with how much faster this will go if he carries you, and besides, how long has it been since you let your lusus carry you like a wriggler? You used to love being carried around in his claws, or even swinging around from his arm or just clinging to his leg. You try not to cringe too hard; better to let him bruise your pride than worsen your injuries.

The heat outside is even worse now, cicadas shrieking in the cyan branches overhead. Your lips taste like salt, and the air may as well be warm water. It's hot enough that even Aradia starts to sweat as she walks ahead of you. 

Occasionally, she glances over her shoulder to check in on you, keeping you awake while Crabdad carries you. You're loathe to admit that you missed this, the feeling of being held and cared for, the idea that someone gives a fuck. Maybes she's onto something about that. 

Aren't you too badass for this wriggler shit? You'd like to believe you are.

Back in the cool shade of the infirmary, there's markedly less trolls than there were this morning. You spot a couple acolytes in their thick robes and eerie masks, but the only other trolls you see are those lying in low cots and mats. It still stinks of various drying herbs.

"I really couldn't ask for a more cheerful place to die, thanks." You mumble. Crabdad makes a noise you're too tired to properly parse.

"Keep talking like that and I might just think you're serious. Do you think you'll manage without sopor?"

" _Fuck._ " You grunt.

"Ooh, that didn't sound good. I'll see if I can send someone to fetch some from your hive tomorrow; we're running too low to spare any right now. And, hey." You lift your head as her shadow falls across your face. She looks serious all of a sudden, the line of her mouth straight and her eyes wide and shining; with what, you're not sure. She searches your face for something, or maybe she's assessing the damage.

She breaks into a grin.

"You'll be fine." She says it so certainly you believe her, but you're not sure if that's a good thing. "I'll see you in the evening. Sleep well."

You don't know what to say. You're already starting to drift in Crabdad's embrace. He holds you against the slightly softer carapace of his underbelly, and you shift around to try and get comfortable on the floor with him; it's cold, though not as cold as it would be alone. Still, it's been a long time since you've slept without sopor, but a much, much longer time since you've slept in the arms of your lusus. You still fit against him, even if you have to tuck in your legs slightly.

It takes a long time to fall asleep, even in that warm, safe darkness, listening to the faint whistle of air through his spiracles.


End file.
